[jerbear4328]

How would the OS know if the app that the browser is querying about is actually the current page? For all the OS knows, the user might be quickly visiting a ton of play.google.com pages for the top 1000 apps on the app store.

[lurking_swe]

> How would the OS know if the app that the browser is querying about is actually the current page?

Maybe i’m missing something, but it sounds like it would be easy for google to support this functionality by letting developers configure this in their app “bundle”. A property that tells the OS “my app is related to domain example.com”. Make it an array of domains if you must.

[codethief]

> A property that tells the OS “my app is related to domain example.com”. Make it an array of domains if you must.

Elaborating on the sibling's comment: There is already such a property that apps must set in their manifests in order for them to be able to react to links/intents for domain-associated-with-the-app.com.

But it doesn't address the question of how a browser is supposed to be able to open links to domain-associated-with-the-app.com in that app, without Android revealing to the browser whether the app is installed or not. In short: The browser will, by construction, be able to determine which apps you've got installed or not.

[pizza]

I mean, do Windows or macOS tell the browser which mail apps you have installed when it handles a mail:// URI?

[josephg]

No, but web browsers do have the ability to ask the OS which application is associated with a certain url type.

But it doesn’t leak that information to web pages.

[charcircuit]

Intent filters can be for domains. It's how deeplinks work. But with querying being locked down you can't know what apps can handle a deeplink.

[heavenlyblue]

make it into a system dialog?

[LordShredda]

But God forbid users learn how to use their device. All of this could be prevented by having the users manually pick the application instead.